The satisfaction of a 'lifer'

Few non-birders understand the extreme satisfaction that a new bird or ’lifer’ brings to a birder. Perhaps in the beginning of the birding journey ‘lifers’ don’t mean as much because they come thick and fast, and even the abundant and conspicuous species are a lifer. As a birder progresses and notches up more ticks, however, ‘lifers’ become progressively more hard-earned. Eventually, after finding the ‘easy’ ones, the birder is left with an assortment of either very secretive, very rare or very isolated birds with very localised distributions……and LBJ’s ofcourse! A prime example of a very localised bird species would be the Green-headed oriole which occurs only at one site in the whole of Southern Africa- Mt Gorongosa. For these more challenging birds, investigation is required to find out reliable sites to find them and knowledge of their habits and the best season to find them is essential. Finally, travel to random, often inhospitable and far-out places is then required to see them.​

Going hand-in-hand with the satisfaction of finding a ‘lifer’ is the disappointment and frustration of not finding one. This feeling of disappointment is something that birders must get used to because for every successful search there are many failures. This is especially frustrating if a birder has travelled to a far off destination for a vagrant or very localised bird species only to miss it- he/she will have to wait a long time for a second bite at the cherry!

Every seasoned birder has ‘bogey’ birds- species that have evaded them time and time again. I have run out of expletives to describe one of my bogey birds- the Ayre’s hawk eagle. This beautiful raptor is rare throughout its range and guaranteed nowhere….. one of the most reliable regions to see it in recent times has been my own back yard- Zululand (Mtubatuba, Teza, Isimangaliso and Richards bay)-. I have gone on many a mission to areas where it has been seen to try and find it, scanning the skies at all times of day…only to come home disappointed.  In desperation I eventually recruited my two young sons to help, offering them an ice-cream if they spotted me one…unfortunately this wasn’t successful in finding me an Ayre’s hawk-eagle but it was rather successful in turning almost every soaring raptor into one!
 
This culmination of investigation, failures, near-misses and the eventual elation at finding a bird is what makes twitching such an addictive and satisfying endeavour and one of the fastest growing hobbies on the planet!